


The Cassandra Effect

by DontTrustLoserCandy



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Body Horror, Clawthorne sisters having a bad time, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Nightmares, Pre-Canon, it IS a nightmare, tiny bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontTrustLoserCandy/pseuds/DontTrustLoserCandy
Summary: Lilith waits for Eda.
Relationships: Eda Clawthorne & Lilith Clawthorne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98





	The Cassandra Effect

**Author's Note:**

> ****shoves this at the tag while I despair over my increasing pile of WIPs****   
>  _hello yes enjoy the pain_

The door opens, as always, exactly at the stroke of midnight.

Lilith rubs her eyes, sitting up in a mix of sleepiness and the weariness of forced wakefulness, and looks at the figure on the door.

"Same nightmare?" Lilith asks, soft, and waits for Eda to come in, close the door, and come crawl under her blankets in the search of safety and comfort.

They've been doing that for each other since forever, after all.

But Eda stays in the threshold, a quiet and pale figure under the moonlight spreading from the hallway's windows, still.

Lilith frowns.

"Edalyn?"

At the lack of answer, Lilith finally stands, shivering at the feeling of the cold floor under her feet. She doesn't have the time nor the mind to look for her slippers, though.

Instead, she walks towards her sister, worry etched in every feature of her face.

"Edalyn, are you all right? Come on, it's cold outside the blankets, and you forgot yours again." Lilith reaches towards her sister's arm and grabs it.

She lets go of it immediately.

"You're freezing," Lilith says, looking at her sister's eyes, dark and wide like bottomless pits.

No. Something's wrong.

Edalyn doubles over as she sinks her nails into her chest, sudden and violent, and Lilith has a second to worry before her sister _changes_.

Edalyn screams, something feral and savage, as her body _rips itself apart_ and feathers sprout from every inch of her skin, teeth and ears elongating as she arches forward and onto four legs, bones cracking and growing and reforming. Black eyes burn into Lilith's, dark and scared and pained, and so, _so knowing, insightful in the way of the blind._

Her breath catches as the beast stands on her hind legs, and Lilith's arms feel leaden next to her sides.

She can't move.

The beast (Edalyn, her sister, her best friend) roars again, anguished and angry and _hungry_ , and a hand full of knife-sharp claws ( _nails. Lilith had painted them today for her._ ) comes down—

* * *

Lilith wakes with a start, eyes staring blankly at her wall until she begins to remember where she is, who she is, that it was just a dream.

It was just a dream.

Her alarm clock tells her it's ten minutes before midnight, and she breathes in the irrational relief it causes. It's okay. It was just a dream. Nothing more. Nothing else.

The clock marks the end of the day as midnight comes and, with it, Eda.

She stands in the threshold of the door, features illuminated by the pale moonlight in a deathly hue, and Lilith feels a chill of deja vu crawl down her spine.

"Couldn't sleep?" Lilith asks, patting the side of her bed in beckoning.

Eda comes in, closing and locking the door behind her, and crawls under the blankets.

"Bad dream," she whispers, voice rough and scratchy. Lilith knows about the sound canceling spells in her room, so she doesn't ask. Still wishes she'd had the forethought of bringing water with her to bed. 

(Usually, Eda's nightmares aren't _this_ bad.)

"Me too," Lilith sighs, lying down and grabbing her sister's hand under the blankets.

Warm.

"What'cha dreamt about, that your illusions teacher failed you?" Eda says, voice trying its best to come across light and breezy despite the hoarseness. "Did your illusion accidentally make you naked in front of the class during an exam?"

"No." Lilith sighs, only mildly irritated. "You _doof_."

"I'm a sleepy owl, not a doof," Eda murmurs, curling closer Lilith and pressing her forehead against her shoulder.

"...Want to talk about it?" Lilith finally asks, voice barely a whisper.

"...No. Not exactly my idea of a bedtime story. Don't wanna talk about it."

And Lilith would usually push, just a bit more, to have Eda tell her about the dream. Because a shared nightmare was shared pain, mitigated, and Lilith knows this even without needing to borrow some healing track book to study the magic behind it.

She didn't want to see her sister suffering.

But she doesn't.

(She doesn't want to remember her dream, either.)

"Wanna talk about it?" Eda says, quiet and tired, and it reminds Lilith that neither of them has been sleeping well these past weeks.

Eda, with nightmares.

Lilith, with the worry and concern from staying up late for the opportunity to help her sister.

"No," she finally whispers, curling closer to her sister like when they were small children.

Back when the world was just them, their first spells and _mis_ spells, and nothing like a nightmare or a nebulous future could separate them.

Back when Eda still told her about her nightmares, no matter how stupid or confusing or frightening.

Eda curls her fingers around Lilith's nightgown, clinging close, and Lilith clings back.

It'll all be fine again tomorrow.

It'll be fine.

Lilith _has_ to believe it'll be.

(There's an old saying in their family about recurring dreams and prophecies, about curses and mischief.

Eda thinks it's stupid, just nonsense made to scare children into behaving.

Lilith, deep down, hopes she's right.)

**Author's Note:**

> I love the Clawthorne sisters  
> Which means they must suffer >:3c


End file.
